Courts face deluge of border cases

Flood of children likely to increase already long delays

Associated Press

Associated Press

Published 8:54 pm, Saturday, July 12, 2014

FILE - This June 18, 2014, file photo, detainees sleep in a holding cell at a U.S. Customs and Border Protection, processing facility in Brownsville,Texas. Immigration courts backlogged by years of staffing shortages and tougher enforcement face an even more daunting challenge since tens of thousands of Central Americans began arriving on the U.S. border fleeing violence back home. For years, children from Central America traveling alone and immigrants who prove they have a credible fear of returning home have been entitled to a hearing before an immigration judge. (AP Photo/Eric Gay, Pool, File) ORG XMIT: LA203

FILE - This June 18, 2014, file photo, detainees sleep in a holding...

Adolescent girls in braids and pigtails and teenage boys wearing jeans and sneakers sat alongside their parents in the courtroom of Immigration Judge Frank Travieso to hear how long they might be allowed to stay in the United States.

Travieso grabbed four thick books and dropped each one on his desk with a thud, warning the families in his Los Angeles courtroom about the thousands of pages of immigration laws and interpretations that could affect their cases and urging them to get a lawyer.

"This is even smaller print," he said of the 1,200-page book containing regulations during the hearing last month. "I am not trying to scare you, but I'm trying to ensure your children get a full and fair hearing."

He then sent them on their way and told them to report back in February.

The scene is one that could become more common as the country's already backlogged immigration courts brace for a deluge of tens of thousands of Central American children arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border in recent months.

The court system is so overwhelmed that it can currently take three years to get a hearing, and many believe the delays will only get worse in the months ahead. For many immigrants, the delays in the court system work in their favor because they know they have so long before their cases are resolved.

Immigration courts in the United States have long been troubled. The courts, overseen by the Department of Justice, have more than 375,000 cases being handled by just 243 judges, according to the agency.

It can take months or years to get hearings for immigrants who aren't in detention facilities, let alone a resolution. Immigration lawyers said judges are already setting hearings for 2017.

The Obama administration has said it will move quickly to process thousands of immigrant children and families arriving on the Texas border fleeing violence and extortion from gangs in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. Since October, more than 57,000 unaccompanied children have reached the U.S., prompting the government to set up temporary shelters and fly immigrants to other states to be processed. Officials have asked Congress for $3.7 billion in emergency funding to cope with the crisis, including the hiring of more judges.

After Central American immigrants are apprehended at the border, they are usually processed at one of several facilities that have been set up across Texas and the Southwest.

Children are placed in shelters and reunited with family members in the U.S. before being told to report to an immigration office and ultimately given a date before a judge in a process that can take years.

In immigration court, many immigrants fail to attend their hearings and are issued deportation orders. More than one in five immigrants not in federal custody were given court orders in their absence during the 2013 fiscal year, according to court statistics.

Obama administration critics say the huge delays only encourage more immigrants to try to come here and turn themselves in at the border, knowing they'll be allowed to wait years for their cases to be resolved.

Vaughan said courts ought to handle cases in reverse order, tackling those on the border first to speed up deportations and deter would-be immigrants and stem the surge.

Since the influx, the immigration courts have temporarily reassigned seven judges to hear cases in southern Texas and three judges to handle hearings at a recently created New Mexico detention facility via teleconferencing, Alder Reid said.

She could not say how many cases have been postponed but expects the latest influx of immigrants will have a significant impact.